Private Moscow

by Patterson, James

  There were a dozen fighters in the gym, along with the large trainer, Makar Koslov, and Erik Utkin, the Black Hundreds organizer. Every single man in the place stopped what he was doing and stared at the visitors. The man closest to them, a lean fighter who’d been using a heavy bag, was the owner of the snake and dagger tattoo Dinara had seen during the highway attack. She was convinced she saw a flicker of shame in his eyes and she caught him glance uncertainly at Erik Utkin. The older man strolled over casually.

  “Why would you come back?” Utkin asked in Russian. “You know who I am. We found my wallet outside in the snow.”

  Jack couldn’t understand a word, but Dinara would never have known by the way he carried himself.

  “That’s real interesting, Erik,” Jack said, striding forwards. “But what I want to know is who’s going to compensate my colleagues for the losses they’ve suffered?”

  “Ah, Yankee Doodle,” Utkin sneered. “Thinking you can come in here, like some buck rooster with a puffed out chest and a big, empty ego.”

  Jack and Utkin met near the ring and the fighters clustered round. If Jack was afraid, Dinara didn’t pick up the slightest indication.

  “I’m guessing that since you’re the one doing all the talking, you’re the one calling all the shots,” Jack replied. “So you’re the one responsible for what happened to my associates.”

  “American asshole,” Utkin jeered in Russian, and the fighters laughed.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Jack said. “You carry on impressing your little boys here.”

  Some of the men must have spoken English, because Dinara felt them bristle at Jack’s remark.

  “I’m betting that since you’re willing to abduct and kill people in broad daylight for simply coming here and asking questions, you’ve got some big things to hide,” Jack said, and Utkin’s mood changed instantly.

  He looked beyond Jack to Dinara and Leonid. “Like I said before, why would you come back?” he asked in Russian. “It’s going to cost you and your American friend your lives.”

  CHAPTER 51

  THE GUY STANK of villainy. I’d encountered enough of it in my life to be familiar with the smell. Everything about him, from his oozing, showy confidence to the arrogant way he assumed he had the upper hand, from the court of minor league villains who surrounded us, to the tacit admission he’d been behind the abduction and murder attempt.

  I couldn’t understand what he’d said to Dinara and Leonid, but I sensed menace in his words. Equally, he hadn’t understood my true purpose. I’d played up being an arrogant, loud-mouth American because I’d suspected it would provoke a reaction, and it had. We now knew beyond any doubt that Erik Utkin and some or all the men in the room were involved in serious criminality they were willing to kill for.

  I sensed movement to my right. One of the boxers came for me, a fit, muscular man about an inch shorter than me. He’d been on a heavy bag when we’d entered, and was marked with the dagger and serpent tattoo Dinara had recalled seeing during her abduction.

  He was quick, but I dodged his first swing and pushed him past me, so he stumbled into some of his buddies. I took off my coat as he turned to face me.

  A shaved head, narrow, hostile eyes, muscles that glistened with sweat, the guy wore shorts and an old Lokomotiv Moscow T-shirt. His hands were protected by light training mitts.

  “Jack,” Dinara said anxiously.

  I looked at her and Leonid and signaled them to stay out of this.

  “OK,” I said, adopting the thinking man’s pose. “Let’s do this.” My opponent sneered and said something in Russian that made the other fighters laugh. Erik Utkin and an older, larger man, who I guessed was Makar Koslov, didn’t find any humor in the remark and remained stony-faced. Maybe they were sufficiently experienced to know that my unconventional stance might look strange to a trained boxer, but that it was very effective in a street brawl.

  My opponent assumed a southpaw stance and came forward. He threw a probing jab, and I taught him a swift lesson about the difference between boxing and street fighting. I deflected the punch by raising my left hand to meet his forearm with my elbow. My right hand, which had been balled in a fist beneath my chin, whipped out and went crashing into the man’s nose.

  He staggered back, dazed, and I felt the other fighters close in on us. Those to his rear pushed him forward and as he came toward me, I lashed out with a heel kick to his shin that made him yelp. Natural pain response sent his hands darting toward the injury, and I had my opening. I hit him with a jab that disorientated him, and followed up with a hammer blow to his clavicle. The fragile collarbone only requires about nine pounds of pressure to break, and my fist must have delivered over thirty.

  The man went down, groaning and clutching his shoulder, and his companions, who’d been so full of laughs and jeers only moments ago, were silent. Brimming with anger and humiliation, they clustered around me and a couple grabbed my arms.

  “You come in my place,” Utkin said. “And you do this?”

  He gestured at the injured fighter, who was being led away by Koslov and another boxer.

  “I’ll do it again and again, until we get through all the men involved in what happened,” I said. “So take a number.”

  Utkin snarled and barked a command in Russian. There was a flurry of movement, and the other fighters swarmed toward Leonid and Dinara.

  They stopped the moment Leonid produced his pistol, and a second later, Dinara was brandishing hers.

  They both yelled in Russian and the fighters backed up. The three men who had hold of me released their grip. All ten of the hard-faced, lean fighters moved away and formed up around Utkin, who glared at us.

  “You and your friends made a big mistake coming here, American,” Utkin said. “The best thing a man can do when he meets a bear is run. Only a fool goes to its cave and bothers it with a stick.”

  “I don’t see any bears here,” I replied, backing away. “Just little cubs.”

  “Come on,” Dinara said, tugging at my arm.

  I held Erik Utkin’s gaze until the last possible moment, and once we were through the double doors, we turned and ran for the car.

  CHAPTER 52

  ADRENALIN WAS STILL surging through my system when we joined the highway and headed toward the city center.

  “That was unexpected,” Leonid said.

  “It was your idea to go there,” Dinara responded.

  “To ask questions. Maybe encourage one of them to talk,” Leonid said. He glanced in the rear-view mirror. “V tihom omute cherti vodyatsa.”

  I looked at Dinara, who smiled.

  “In quiet lagoons, devils dwell,” she translated. “He thinks you’re dangerous. Unpredictable.”

  “They strike you as the kind of people who talk?” I asked Leonid.

  He shrugged. “I guess not. So what now? The soft approach is dead.”

  “This is about much more than fixing fights,” I replied. “Erik Utkin looked like I’d hit him with a cattle prod when I said they were covering up something big. I want you to stay on the gym,” I said to Leonid. “Follow Utkin. See if you can find out where he goes, what he does.”

  “Alone?” Leonid asked.

  “Dinara and I will take the other strands, Ernie Fisher’s death and Maxim Yenen.”

  I could see Leonid consider the suggestion as he slowed to join a line of rush-hour traffic.

  “Maybe we have some budget for support?” he suggested.

  I looked at Dinara.

  “Yenen’s given us a blank check,” she said.

  “Good. Then I can buy some help,” Leonid responded.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Our new housemates,” he said. “My old police friends.”

  We had a pool of experienced police officers at our disposal, many of whom were time rich and cash poor. It made sense, as long as they could be trusted.

  “OK,” I said, “but choose your people carefully.”

 
; “Of course,” Leonid agreed.

  Dinara’s phone rang and she answered. She listened for a moment and hung up without saying a word.

  “Maxim Yenen will meet us tonight,” she said. “Eleven p.m., Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge.”

  “Is he crazy?” Leonid asked. “That’s by Red Square. Not exactly a private spot.”

  “He said it’s there or nowhere,” Dinara replied.

  Leonid shook his head disapprovingly.

  “We’ll be careful,” I assured him. I turned to Dinara. “That gives us time.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “I want to take a look at Ernie Fisher’s apartment. See what we can learn about the man.”

  CHAPTER 53

  NIGHT WAS FALLING by the time Leonid dropped us off in Rochdelskaya Street, two blocks from Ernie Fisher’s riverfront apartment building. Warning us to be careful, Leonid drove off in the spluttering Lada to muster a surveillance team made up of ex-cops from the Residence.

  Dinara and I walked the icy streets toward the river. The buildings on the other bank were lit up and the freezing mist that rose above the water made their lights shimmer like stars.

  It didn’t take Dinara long to pick the front door again, and we were soon inside.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?” I asked.

  “FSB training module,” she replied. “Everywhere we go, we meet closed doors. I thought it would be useful to know how to get through them.”

  She flashed me a smile, and I replied in kind. She was strong, capable and beautiful and in different circumstances, perhaps …

  I killed the idea before it took flight. Had Karl’s death hit me so hard I’d become desperate for human connection? Or was I just lonely? I lived a difficult, solitary life. Was I secretly longing for someone to share it with?

  I followed Dinara through the grand old building. It was located in the heart of the government district, next to one of the centers of Russian power, Federation House, and, according to Leonid and Dinara, it was inhabited by mid-level civil servants, politicians and diplomats. The richly patterned, worn carpet, grimy old chandeliers and cracked marble trim pointed to people who liked the trappings of power, but lacked the funds to maintain them.

  I followed Dinara into an elevator and we went to the ninth floor. The corridor was deserted and when we got to Fisher’s apartment, we discovered it had been sealed by a temporary metal security door that was covered in warning signs and pad-locked to the wall.

  “‘Moscow Police. Keep Out,’” Dinara read, reaching for her lock picks.

  She pulled a couple of tiny tools from a neat leather case and opened the padlock in less than a minute.

  “If they were serious about keeping people out, they’d buy better locks,” she said, pulling the door wide.

  I hadn’t noticed it the day before, but the smell of stale alcohol hit me the moment we stepped inside the cold apartment. I closed the security door behind me and we moved further into Fisher’s home.

  The place was otherwise as I remembered. It looked as though it had been turned over by someone in a rush. Books and papers were scattered everywhere and everything from clothes to cutlery had been strewn about the apartment. The only noticeable difference since our last visit was dark finger-print dust covering almost every smooth surface from the windowsills to the shelves.

  “Why don’t I take the bedroom?” Dinara suggested.

  “I’ll search in here,” I replied.

  Dinara carefully picked her way through the mess and I watched her go into a dark corridor before I started my search.

  We kept the lights off so we wouldn’t draw attention to our presence, and had to rely on ambient light from the city to illuminate the apartment. The gloom made the place seem even more tragic, and as I scoured the living room, I found evidence that Ernie Fisher might have been a big drinker. There were stains and spillages everywhere, and half-empty liquor bottles littered the floor.

  We spent an hour carefully picking over the place, but I found nothing to link Ernie Fisher to Karl Parker, Elizabeth Connor or Robert Carlyle. Dinara emerged from the corridor, carrying a small suitcase.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “You?”

  “This was on the bed. It’s full of clothes and toiletries, like he was packing for a trip,” she replied. “But I can’t find a passport.”

  “Maybe it’s at the embassy,” I suggested.

  “Possibly.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just some empty vodka bottles under his bed.”

  “Yeah, I think he had a drink problem.”

  “A guilty conscience, perhaps,” Dinara suggested.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I think we’re done here. Let’s go.”

  We started for the door, but as I stepped over a small broken mirror, I caught the fractured reflection of something gold in the shattered pieces. I crouched down and followed the line of sight to discover a brass key strapped inside an armoire. The key was attached to the top of a compartment that would have housed one of three drawers scattered about the room.

  “What is it?” Dinara asked.

  I reached in and pulled at the tape that held it in place.

  “A key,” I said as I stood up and showed her the tiny discovery.

  CHAPTER 54

  THE KEY DIDN’T fit anything in the apartment and we found nothing else of interest, so we left and caught a cab round the corner from Ernie Fisher’s place. Both of us sat in the back, and I watched the city roll by as we headed to the Residence.

  “Is it much like America?” Dinara asked.

  “You’ve never been, right?” I recalled her mentioning a desire to visit the US at our interview.

  She shook her head. “London is my furthest west.”

  “Different architecture”—I gestured to the brightly lit bronze dome of an Orthodox church—“but it’s much the same. Fast-food joints everywhere, just like here, fewer European cars on the streets, same freezing weather in the north, heat in the south. Cities full of people just trying to get by. Beneath the surface, I don’t think any country is that different, because people aren’t that different. Most want health, happiness and a good life for their family.”

  “And you?” she asked pointedly. “What do you want?” Her eyes shone in the light cast by oncoming cars.

  “I want people to have justice.”

  “And family?” Dinara pressed. “For yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Maybe one day.”

  The rest of the journey passed in silence, and when we reached the Residence, I asked Dinara whether she’d help me try to identify the key. A building full of former cops was as good a place as any to start the search.

  We went into one of the recreation rooms that lay off the lobby and spoke to half a dozen residents. A couple spoke English, but most needed Dinara’s translation. They didn’t recognize the key and couldn’t help, but when we sat opposite the seventh ex-cop, and showed it to him, his eyes flashed knowingly.

  “It’s for a Mauer keylock. They use them on Kaso safes,” the man said in fluent English.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied, almost insulted. “I worked burglary for fifteen years. Valentin Popel,” he said, offering me his hand, which I shook.

  Popel must have been in his mid-fifties and had curly gray hair that fell around his ears. He’d been sitting alone, reading a book when we’d approached him, and was wearing slippers, slacks and a cardigan. He looked more like someone’s grandfather than a hardboiled cop.

  “How big is one of these safes?” I asked.

  “About the size of a small refrigerator. Maybe bigger,” he said.

  I glanced at Dinara. There was nowhere in the apartment Ernie Fisher could have concealed something that size.

  “Are these things rare?” I asked hopefully.

  “Kaso? No. They sell t
hem all over the world. It’s a very good safe.”

  “Could it be in the American embassy?” Dinara asked.

  Popel shook his head. “American embassies only trust American safes. No, this thing would not be there. Unless it was unofficial.”

  “Spying?” Dinara suggested.

  “A spy with a four-foot-tall safe,” Popel scoffed. “Not very subtle. This is a big thing to hide. Not something anyone would be able to conceal in an embassy.”

  I glanced at Dinara. “Thank you, Mr. Popel,” I said to the man. “Please excuse me. I need to make a call.”

  I left him and Dinara and went to my room where I phoned Justine. I brought her up to speed and told her about the key, which I hid in a crack beneath my windowsill.

  “We think it’s for a safe,” I explained. “We need to find out where it’s located. Can you ask Mo-bot to go through Ernie Fisher’s personal history and employment records for any possible sites? Also check his bank accounts and credit cards. See if there’s a record of him buying a safe. Also look for anywhere he’s visited regularly.”

  “Will do,” she replied.

  There was a brief pause.

  “How are you coping out there, Jack?”

  “Fine,” I replied. “I’m with good people.”

  “Dinara?” she asked, her voice strained with jealousy.

  “I thought we weren’t going to complicate things,” I said.

  My remark was greeted with silence. Then came a knock at the door.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Be safe,” Justine replied, before I hung up.

  I opened the door and found Dinara waiting.

  “We have to leave,” she said. “It’s time to meet Maxim Yenen.”

  CHAPTER 55

  MAXIM YENEN’S DECISION to meet near Red Square surprised Dinara. It was one of the most heavily monitored parts of Moscow, and if the billionaire was trying to downplay his links to Private, the location was an odd choice.